Richard Perle Said Clark Was Against War

[Quixote1818]

Richard Perle was also on the panel WITH Clark, supporting the administrations take on things. Here is how he characterized Clark's position.


Schrock: Sure, I would love to know Mr. Perle's, you know, the general said time is on our side. My guess is you do not believe that.

Perle: No, I don't believe it and frankly I don't think made a very convincing case in support of that cliche but it was one of many cliches. At the end of the day when you sought to elicit from him a reconciliation of the view that time is on our side with what he acknowledged to be our ignorance of how far along Saddam Hussein is, he had no explanation.

He seems to be preoccupied, and I'm quoting now, with building legitimacy, with exhausting all diplomatic remedies as though we hadn't been through diplomacy for the last decade, and relegating the use of force to a last resort, to building the broadest possible coalition, in short a variety of very amorphous, ephemeral concerns alongside which there's a stark reality and that is that every day that goes by, Saddam Hussein is busy perfecting those weapons of mass destruction that he already has, improving their capabilities, improving the means with which to deliver them and readying himself for a future conflict.

So I don't believe that time is on our side and I don't believe that this fuzzy notion that the most important thing is building legitimacy, as if we lack legitimacy now, after all the U.N. resolutions that he's in blatant violation of, I don't believe that that should be the decisive consideration. So I think General Clark simply doesn't want to see us use military force and he has thrown out as many reasons as he can develop to that but the bottom line is he just doesn't want to take action. He wants to wait.

[kentuck]

1. This quote should be mailed to Lou Dobbs....

with the explanation that it came from the same hearing that Clark attended...

from Richard Perle:
"He seems to be preoccupied, and I'm quoting now, with building legitimacy, with exhausting all diplomatic remedies as though we hadn't been through diplomacy for the last decade, and relegating the use of force to a last resort, to building the broadest possible coalition, in short a variety of very amorphous, ephemeral concerns alongside which there's a stark reality and that is that every day that goes by, Saddam Hussein is busy perfecting those weapons of mass destruction that he already has, improving their capabilities, improving the means with which to deliver them and readying himself for a future conflict.

So I don't believe that time is on our side and I don't believe that this fuzzy notion that the most important thing is building legitimacy, as if we lack legitimacy now, after all the U.N. resolutions that he's in blatant violation of, I don't believe that that should be the decisive consideration. So I think General Clark simply doesn't want to see us use military force and he has thrown out as many reasons as he can develop to that but the bottom line is he just doesn't want to take action. He wants to wait."

[Bread and Roses]

2. This is SO good!

thank you

[H2O Man]

3. Thank you!!!

Wow! You are SO GOOD!!!! Perfect, perfect, perfect!!! I love this! You have just knocked the stuffing out of one of the most potentially divisive "tricks" that the right-wing would use to try to divide us! I admire your ability to show the truth! Our side benefits more from one person like you than the right-wing does with 100 liars. Bless you.

[rman]

4. link?

-

[DrBB]

7. TPM--see below n/t

[DrBB]

5. TPM comes through for us again

Been quoting that bit myself yesterday & today, but want to make sure people know where it came from. At least that's where I found it.

It does rather put the nail in that particular canard.

[wndycty]

6. Well it seems like bash on Clark failed. . .

. . .:kick: